


What if the Apocalypse Didn't Happen

by achilleswithworkingheels



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Mechanisms (Band) (sort of)
Genre: (only a bit), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autistic Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Disabled Jon, F/F, Fix-It, Gen, Gerry doesn't know what gender is, I'm American sorry if I don't know stuff, M/M, Multi, No Apocalypse, Nonbinary Character, Now he has a punk band with one of his boyfriends and some people from the archives + nastya, Polyamory, Scotland, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Teacher Jon, The Mechanisms Were The Archivist's College Band, Trans Gerard Keay, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Transphobia, elias is dead, no one knows what self care is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 12,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24602038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achilleswithworkingheels/pseuds/achilleswithworkingheels
Summary: Jon, Martin, and Gerry escape to Scotland after killing Elias and stopping the apocalypse.Some stories about their lives in Scotland, where Jon becomes a teacher, and other shenanigans happen.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 120
Kudos: 455





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a real chapter, just the explanation of how the canon of this universe works.

\- Gerry got his brain cancer treated, so he is not dead.

\- Jon and Martin met Gerry when he came to burn a Leitner in artifact storage. (Elias was not happy about this). They both met him a few more times after that, becoming friends, and quickly developing crushes.

\- Jon and Martin liked each other by this point, but neither said anything.

\- They are all oblivious until Melanie steers them in the right direction and they start dating.

\- Jon, Gerry, Basira, Daisy, and Nastya start a punk band. (Nastya is basically just the character minus the immortal space pirate thing).

\- The Lonely turns you hair white the closer you get to becoming an avatar, so Martin has streaks of white in his hair. Gerry teases him and Jon about being old men even though he is the oldest one.

\- When Jon gets Martin out of the Lonely he kills Elias before they flee.


	2. First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon starts his job as a teacher.

“How do I look?” Jon asked, stepping out of the bedroom and showing Martin his outfit.

“Incredibly adorable.” Martin gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m not adorable,” Jon protested. “And that’s not the point, I need to look professional.”

“You are adorable,” Gerry piped up from the kitchen where he was still eating breakfast. “Also, why don’t you ever ask me for fashion advice.”

Jon sighed. “Because I am starting a job as a teacher today and you look like you just left a MCR concert.” Gerry just shrugged and kept eating his eggs.

“You’ll do fine Jon, don’t worry about it. You can literally Know anything.”

“I know, I know. I’m just nervous. Kids can be mean,” Jon said. He stared down at his feet, remembering all the awful kids that he went to school with who would always find something to pick on him about, calling him slurs and beating him up and laughing when they took his cane and he couldn’t walk. Jon knew that that wouldn’t happen now that he was a teacher, but he wasn’t sure if they would respect him. “I don’t want to become the teacher that no one likes or respects.”

“Everything is going to be fine, trust me,” Gerry said, grabbing Jon’s hand and rubbing soothing circles on the back of it. He had finished his eggs and was now standing next to Martin.

Jon said goodbye to them and left for his new job. He really hoped that this went well.

\--

The teachers that Jon had met so far were nice, but he had yet to meet any of the students. He saw a few of them in the hallways, but they mostly ignored the teachers since it was before the start of classes.

Jon found his classroom and started setting things up for his first class. He was teaching English for the year 10s and 11s. The curriculum is fairly simple, so hopefully everything will go smoothly.

The classroom was slowly filling up as it got closer to the start of the day and by the time school officially started all of the seats were filled up.

“Good morning class, my name is Mr. Sims and since I’m new I don’t know any of you. But because I know that all of you hate ice breakers I will be handing out note cards. You will be writing your name, pronouns, an interesting fact about yourself, and anything else that you want me to know.”  
Most of the students finished their cards quickly and handed them back to him, but one of the kids in the back looked really nervous and when they turned in the card their hand was shaking. He checked the card and his suspicions were confirmed, the pronouns on the card were they/them and on the bottom of the card said “please don’t say anything to my parents’. Jon gave the student, Atlas, a smile. He knew what it was like to come out to teachers, Jon had been just as scared when he was in highschool.

“Can you stay for a few minutes after class?” Jon said, trying to sound as non threatening as possible and make sure that the other students wouldn’t hear.

Atlas just nodded before quickly returning to their seat.

\--

When everyone had left the classroom Jon closed the door and turned to Atlas who was still sitting in their seat at the back.

“Am I in trouble?” Atlas asked, barely audible. They were looking down at their hands, wringing them together.

“Of course not,” Jon said quickly. He hadn’t meant to give off that impression, but he did ask Atlas to stay after class, which definitely made it seem like they were in trouble. Jon felt kind of bad about that. “It was just that your card said not to tell your parents your pronouns and I wanted to ask about that. Like if I should use your pronouns with other teachers, which ones I should use if I talk to your parents, anything else you want me to know.”

Atlas looked genuinely surprised. They had probably never had anyone respect their pronouns before. “Well you’re the only teacher that has ever asked about my pronouns and I have been too afraid to talk to any of the other teachers. I’m also scared that they will tell my parents, so can you not tell the other teachers. And use he/him pronouns with my parents.”

“Ok, thank you for telling me all of this. I know that it’s hard to come out to people.” Jon saw Atlas’s eyes light up with realization.

“You’re-”

“Yep.” Jon smiled at Atlas, they looked relieved to know that there was someone like them that they could trust. “One more thing Atlas. I need to know whether or not you are safe at home if your parents happen to find out that you're trans.”

“I don’t really know. I doubt that they would be accepting.” Atlas looked down again, Jon could almost feel the fear coming from them.

“Okay. Well if anything happens you can always come to me. Now you should get to your next class.”

\--

Jon finished the last of his classes and stared on the walk home. It took longer than usual because his knee was refusing to cooperate after a day of standing. When he finally got home Jon dropped his stuff at the front door and immediately flopped down onto the couch.

“Bad day?” Gerry asked, looking up from the book he was reading.

“No, my knee is just being annoying.” Gerry gave him a sympathetic look. “But my day was fine otherwise. There’s a trans kid in one of my classes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, their name is Atlas. I’m a bit worried about them though. They aren’t out to their parents and from what they told me, it wouldn’t go well if they found out.” Jon was staring at the ceiling, head laid back on one of the couch cushions, forehead creased with worry.

“I mean, if anything were to happen, they could always come to us. I’m sure Martin wouldn’t mind, and when I was their age knowing not just one but three other trans people who are doing well in life would have been amazing.”

Jon sighed. “I told them that they could come to me if anything happens, but I’m still worried about them. Teenagers are mean, especially to anyone who is different.” Jon thought about his experience in school for the second time that day, shuddering at the unpleasant memories.

“Look whatever happens, they know that they have someone to go to, and that’s better than nothing.”

Gerry moved so that he was sitting next to Jon. He grabbed the others hand, lacing their fingers together. Jon leaned on Gerry’s shoulder. After a few minutes he fell asleep, tired from his first day of work after leaving the institute.

\--

Martin came home to Gerry and Jon curled up together, asleep, on the couch. Sometimes Martin worried about them getting enough sleep. Jon had trouble sleeping because of his nightmares and Gerry worked at a bar in town at night. And with Martin and Jon both being gone during the day neither could make sure he went back to sleep after they left, since they always managed to wake him up, and Jon obviously couldn’t sleep at school.

“Gerry,” Martin said softly, setting down his bags and shaking his shoulder a bit. “Gerry, you have work in an hour, you need to get up.”

Gerry groaned and burrowed farther into the couch. “No, I wanna sleep.” Despite his protests Gerry got up after a few seconds, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m going to take Jon to bed, you get ready for work,” Martin said, picking Jon up. He curled into Martin, grabbing onto his shirt. “I brought some food home, it’s in one of those bags.”

Gerry thanked him, taking the food out of one of the bags.

Martin pulled back the covers of the bed and gently set Jon down. He took off his glasses before pulling the sheets up to cover Jon’s shoulders. Martin kissed him on the forehead then turned to go eat dinner with Gerry, closing the door quietly. He would put Jon’s cane by the nightstand after he ate so that he could get up when he woke.

When Martin got into the kitchen Gerry was already sitting at the table, stuffing food into his mouth. “Did you eat anything today?” Gerry usually was a slow eater, unless he was really hungry.

“Maybe?” He sounded genuinely unsure. Martin sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.

“You have to stop forgetting to eat.”

“I know. I know,” Gerry said, looking away from Martin in guilt. He did try to remember, but sometimes he would get distracted and then it would be three hours later and one of them would already be making dinner. “I try.”

“Okay.” Martin decided to leave it alone for now. They all really needed to get better at self care. “How was your day?”

“Good.” Gerry looked down the hallway, making sure that the bedroom door was still closed. “I’m going to get our band together for a Halloween show. The owner of the bar also owns a venue across the street and she agreed to let me use it on Halloween.”

“Jon’s going to love that.” The band hadn’t played a show since after Jon and daisy had gotten out of the buried. “And everyone is cool with coming to Scotland for a show.”

“Yeah. Technically Daisy does own this house. I think her and Basira are going to be staying in the guest room.”

“What about Nastya?”

“I offered to let her stay here and sleep on the couch, I’m pretty sure Daisy said it was a pull out,” Gerry said. “They are all going to get here three days before Halloween, so we have some time to practice.”

Martin laughed to himself, mumbling, “We are going to get so many noise complaints.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated, I would love to hear what people think. <3
> 
> Also, it might be a while before the next update since I will not have a computer for a bit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon's students google him.

Jon walked into a full classroom the next morning. He didn’t think it was that unusual for all of his students to be on time, but it was definitely unexpected.

What was unusual was that the room went dead silent when he walked in. Jon didn’t have to Know anything to know that they had googled him. It was a fair thing to do, especially when your new teacher is covered in scars and can basically read minds, not that they knew that, but quite a few suspected it.

“Just ask your questions,” Jon said, knowing that nothing would get done with everyone distracted.

One of the students took out their phone and started playing a Mechanisms song. “This is you right?”

“Yes. The Mechanisms were my college band. Now please put your phone away, this is a classroom.” They seemed satisfied with that answer, but Jon knew there would be more questions about it in the future.

“Did you murder someone?” one of the girls at the front asked. At least they weren’t going to dance around that question for ten minutes.

“Which case are you talking about?” Most of them looked shocked, somehow managing to get even more quiet. They had obviously only found one case.

“The unidentified man,” the girl said hesitantly.

That made sense, the Elias case was a lot harder to find, most crimes involving the institute were, but the head of the institute getting murdered usually stayed within the sphere of Section 31. It wasn’t the first time that it had happened.

“I didn’t kill him, or the other guy for that matter. My boss did. I had gone outside for a cigarette and when I came back inside there was a dead man in my office.”

“Who was he?” One of the students asked at the same time as another said “What happened to your boss?”

“The man was a librarian named Jurgen Leitner and my boss is now dead,” Jon said, he really didn’t like talking about this. “My boss, Elias, is the other case I was talking about. I also didn’t kill him.” Jon had cut out his eyes and Martin had beat him up, but Gerry was the one to kill him, but his students didn’t need to know that. They also didn’t need to know about Peter.

"How did you get all of those scars?" Atlas asked. Jon was surprised to hear from them, they hadn't seemed like the type of person to talk in class.

Jon wasn't sure how to phrase his answer. He wanted to make it sound relatively normal, not like they had all come from interactions with supernatural entities, which they had, but still. "Work related incidents." was the answer that he ended up giving.This was met with confused silence. Ton figured that they knew that he previously worked as an archivist, so it made sense that they were confused. "Can we get back to class now?" Most of his students nodded, either satisfied with the answers they had gotten or unwilling to ask what Jon meant by work related incidents.

—

"How was your day?" Martin asked. Jon had decided to go to the library and get some of his work done while he waited for Martin's shift to be over, although he wasn't actually getting that much work done.

"They know everything about me Martin, everything." Martin raised an eyebrow at Jon as he re shelved a book. "Okay, not everything, but they did find The Mechanisms and the stuff about the murder cases. They also asked about my scars , I didn't tell them the whole truth of course."

"Yeah, your teacher saying that he got attacked by eldritch fear monsters probably isn't a normal occurrence."

Jon laughed. “You’re right about that one."


	4. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon has a nightmare.

Jon was standing in the panopticon. Elias was there, standing in front of Jon, staring at him with empty eye sockets. This was wrong. Where were Gerry and Martin, they were supposed to be here with him. Elias was supposed to be dead.

“I didn’t expect to see you again Archivist.” Jon flinched at the name, he hadn’t been called that since they had fled to the safehouse.

“You’re dead, we killed you,” Jon said, voice shaking.

“But yet here I am.” Elias took a step closer. Jon tried to back away, but his feet wouldn’t move. “You killed someone very important to me Archivist, don’t you think I should return the favor?”

Jon collapsed to the ground as an image of Martin and Gerry bleeding out on the floor in the archives flashed through his mind. Jon felt tears run down his cheeks. This couldn’t be happening. They had escaped this.

“No, stop, please. You can’t do this. Not them, please not them. I’ve lost so much already, I can’t lose them too. I love them.”

“Poor Archivist, love can’t do anything for them now.”

Jon woke up in a cold sweat. It was just a dream, everything was fine. He knew that, but a part of him couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn’t really a dream, that Elias had somehow lived and was going to kill Gerry and Martin. Gerry. Jon shot up into a seated position, waking Martin who had had an arm draped over Jon’s chest. Gerry wasn’t home yet, he wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. What if something happened to him, what if Elias came back and hurt him. Martin was next to Jon, he could keep him safe, but Gerry wasn’t, Jon couldn’t do anything if Elias tried to harm him now.

“Jon?” Martin's voice broke Jon out of his spiral. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were shaking. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I-, Elia-. Ger-,” Jon tried to tell Martin about the nightmare, but he couldn’t. The words refused to leave his mouth.

“It’s okay, you can tell me later.” Martin placed a hand over Jon’s to try and comfort him. Jon flinched away, not having expected the contact.

“Sorry,” Jon tried to mumble, it came out sounding like he had said it underwater, but he knew Martin understood him. Jon hadn’t wanted to do that. Martin was nice and comforting and warm and safe, but his hand had been unexpected and it started Jon.

Martin frowned. “You don’t have to apologize. Do you want me to leave and give you some space?” Jon shook his head. “Okay, do you not want to be touched?” Martin wanted to make sure he wouldn’t do anything to make Jon feel worse. Jon shook his head again, he desperately wanted Martin to hug him, he wanted to be wrapped up in his arms and know he was safe there, that no one could hurt them, but he didn’t know how to tell him that without speaking. Jon could also barely move, his whole body shaking now, he needed Gerry to be safe, but he couldn’t do anything if he wasn’t there.

Martin seemed to figure out what Jon wanted because he slowly wrapped an arm around him and pulled Jon closer, warning him that he was going to touch him this time.

“Gerry,” Jon managed to get out. “I-I, I. C-c-can- can.” Jon was trying to say that he needed Gerry to be okay and to ask Martin to call him, but the words refused to translate from thoughts to speech.

“Did something happen to Gerry in your nightmare?” Jon nodded his head.

“Ca-, cal- call.”

“Call him?” Jon nodded again. “Okay, I’m going to have to move to get my phone.” Martin slowly let go of Jon, leaning over to grab his phone from the night stand. As soon as he had it Martin wrapped his arms back around Jon.

\--

Gerry’s phone rang in his pocket. He couldn’t check it, but he knew that the only people that would be calling him were Jon and Martin. If they were calling him during his shift it was probably something important.

He got one of his coworkers to cover for him while he went outside to take the call. By the time he had gotten outside his phone had stopped ringing, so he called Martin back.

\--

Gerry didn't pick up, it was probably because he was at work, but what if something had happened to him. What if he had gotten hurt. What if someone had hurt him. He needed Gerry to be okay. Jon didn’t know what he would do if something happened to Gerry, he had already lost so many people, he couldn’t lose another, especially someone he loved so much.

Jon started to shake harder and he felt tears run down his face.

But then Martin’s phone started to ring again and a wave of relief washed over Jon. It didn’t last very long though, because Jon started to worry that it wasn’t really Gerry calling, that Elias had survived and had done something to Gerry and was calling from his phone.

His thought spiral was cut off by Martin answering the phone, and thankfully he had put it on speaker so Jon could hear.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t answer, I had to get someone to cover for me, we’re pretty busy tonight,” Gerry said through the phone. He didn’t sound like he was in pain or worried about anything. He sounded safe. But Jon was worried that something would happen to him. “What were you calling about?”

“Jon had a nightmare, something happened to you in it and he wanted me to call you. It really freaked him out.” Martin pressed a reassuring kiss to the top of Jon’s head. He was still shaking a bit, but knowing that Gerry was safe helped.

“Is he okay?” Gerry said, voice filled with worry.

Jon nodded in response to Gerry’s question. “Yeah, he is, just shaken up.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll be home in about thirty minutes. I love you both, but I have to get back to work. See you soon.” The call ended and Jon curled closer to Martin.

\--

The sound of the door unlocking calmed Jon down even more than the phone call had. Gerry was finally home. He was finally safe. There were some more sounds of shuffling before the bedroom door opened, Gerry walking in with a look of concern on his face.

“Jon, hey, you okay?” Gerry asked, sitting down next to Jon and Martin, taking one of Jon’s hands in his.

“I-I-I wi-will be.”

“Good, that’s good.” Gerry gave both of them a quick kiss. “I’m going to go change. I'll be right back.” Jon nodded and Gerry got up from the bed.

He came back wearing an old pair of shorts and one of Martin’s sweaters.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Martin said, grabbing one of the sweater sleeves when Gerry got back into bed.

“And?” Jon snorted. “It’s two against one my dear. Also your sweaters are comfortable.”

Martin laughed. “Fine, but it better end up with the rest of my sweaters and not with your jackets.”

Gerry just gave him a smug look. Martin responded by leaning over to kiss him, he knew that he wasn’t going to get that sweater back for at least a week or two. Jon groaned, having gotten squished between the two men. He pushed them away so that he wasn’t elbowing himself in the stomach anymore, but made sure to keep them close.

“I’m tired.” Gerry yawned and layed down, pulling Jon and Martin along with him. “We should sleep.”

Jon nodded and grabbed one of Gerry’s hands lacing their fingers together. Martin curled up around Jon, draping an arm across both of them. Jon felt safe and he knew that Martin and Gerry were safe too. And this time when he drifted off to sleep there were no nightmares.


	5. NIghtmare part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of the last chapter.

Jon woke up the next morning to the sound of Martin’s alarm. Something felt off about that, but in his half asleep state it took Jon a minute to realize what. His alarm was supposed to go off before Martin’s. Had he missed his?

Jon turned to Martin who was fumbling to find his phone on the nightstand. Martin noticed him staring and gave Jon a confused look.

“T-that’s your ala-arm.” Jon frowned, he was still having a hard time speaking.

Martin seemed to understand what Jon was asking. “Don’t worry, you didn’t sleep through yours. I called the school and said that you weren’t going to be in today.” Jon opened his mouth to protest, but Martin cut him off before he could say anything. “We are not going to argue about this. Last night took a lot out of you and you need to rest.”

“But-”

“No buts, get some rest.” Jon gave in, relaxing back against the headboard. “Gerry’s going to be home all day and you can check in with me wherever you want to. Now get some rest.”

“I will, b-but I-I-I need to-to give my st-students something to do whi-whi-while I-I’m not there.”

“Fine.” Martin grabbed Jon’s computer bag from on top of the dresser and reluctantly handed it to him. “But I’m putting this back before I leave so you don’t spend the whole day working.”

Jon sent an email to his students with instructions on what to do during class that day. He didn’t actually expect for them to get all of it done, but it would be nice if they could get ahead of schedule so there wouldn’t be a problem if a class got a bit behind.

When Martin was done getting ready he put Jon’s computer back on the dresser before kissing him and Gerry goodbye.

Jon hated to admit it, but he did need the rest, Martin was right, and the only one out of the three of them with a healthy sleep schedule. Jon curled up next to Gerry, using his arm as a pillow and let his soft snores lull Jon back to sleep.

\--

When Jon woke back up he was alone in bed, sun streaming through the window directly into his eyes. He rolled over to the other side of the bed, away from the blinding sun, and checked the time on his phone, 10:30. At least he hadn’t slept in too late.

Jon was about to wonder where Gerry was when he heard a loud crashing sound coming from the kitchen followed by Gerry loudly saying, “Fuck.” Gerry must be making breakfast. The man was a good cook, but he was also a pretty clumsy one, so something almost always ended up on the floor.

Jon laughed and grabbed his cane, making his way into the kitchen. There were bowls covering most of the counters and a plate holding a big stack of pancakes next to the stove. “Good m-morning. Pancakes?”

“Well that is what I was trying to make.” Gerry glared at the spatula on the ground in front of him. “But I dropped the spatula and I don’t want to wash it, so the ones that I already made are the only ones you’re getting.”

Jon smiled and shrugged, grabbing a pancake and some fruit that Gerry had cut up. Pancakes with strawberries and peaches was the perfect breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to do a bunch of small 2-3 chapter stories set in the same time period that all fit into this story/universe. Also sorry that it took me so long to update this, I don't have an excuse, it just took a long time.


	6. Oliver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver Banks shows up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter because this idea entered my head and would not leave.

“Mr. Sims?” Jon was interrupted by one of his students.

“Yes Jamie?”

“There’s a man at the door.” He pointed to the person leaning against the classroom door, Jon must not have heard him come in. Being able to Know everything apparently wasn’t helpful for knowing when people entered his classroom.

“Oliver?” Jon said, now confused about a lot of things. The Beholding provided the knowledge that he had gotten here using the Distortions doors, and if Jon looked close enough he could see the slight static that hovered around both Oliver and what was not his classroom door. “Am I dying or something?”

A couple students reacted weirdly to that question, but Jon could deal with that later.

“No.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To give you this.” Oliver held out a rose towards Jon.

“What’s the catch?” Jon asked.

“You’ll see,” Oliver replied, unhelpfully. “I’ll just say that it isn’t dangerous and that Helen paid me to give this to you.”

“So this is Helen’s idea.” Jon’s students were very confused by this point. None of them knew what was going on, and Jon was dreading the onslaught of questions that he was going to face once Oliver left.

“Yeah, but she can’t exactly walk into your classroom and give it to you, so she’s having me do it. Plus I thought it would be funny.”

Jon was now even more weary of taking the rose. He tried to See what had been done to it, but the combination of the Spiral and the End was stopping him.

“Is there any way I can get out of this?” Jon asked, knowing that there wasn’t.

“Nope.”

Jon sighed and stepped towards Oliver taking the rose from him. At first glance nothing seemed to be wrong with it, but Oliver was already starting to make his retreat, so that obviously wasn’t the case.

“Well then, see you later Jon,” Oliver said, quickly closing the door behind him.

Jon watched the static fade from the room as Helen’s door disappeared. Then he looked down at the rose and almost screamed. About a dozen baby spiders were crawling out of it. Jon dropped the rose, frantically stomping on it in an effort to kill all of the spiders. Once he was sure that they were dead Jon picked up the rose and threw it out one of the class room windows.

When Jon turned back to his class, quite a few of their hands were raised. “There were spiders. I hate spiders.” Was the explanation that Jon gave them.

“That’s fair, but why did you ask him if you were dying?” Asked one of his students.

“Because last time I saw him I was dead, well my body was anyway.”

The class went smoothly after that, none of them daring to ask what Jon meant by being dead, not knowing if he was being serious or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Jon told Martin and Gerry about this they both thought it was funny, Jon obviously did not.
> 
> Also comments are always appreciated, I love to hear what you guys thing of my writing.


	7. Atlas 1

Outside of the gym, by the vending machine.

Jon was working on grading papers when the Beholding decided to drop this piece of knowledge into his brain. There was no context as to why he was told this, but it had to be important. He had to know why the Beholding wanted him there. Hopefully it wasn’t anything that could kill him.

As Jon rounded the corner into the gym hallway he heard the sound of muffled sobs. He saw the person tense up at his arrival in the hallway, but relax after a few seconds, hearing the sound of his cane accompanying his footsteps. It was Atlas. They were curled up next to the vending machine crying, still in their gym uniform.

“Atlas, hey, what happened?” Jon said softly kneeling down to sit beside them.

“They called me a tranny and beat me up,” Atlas mumbled, head resting against their arms. “And then kicked me out of the locker room.”

Jon wanted to say he was surprised that this happened, but the same thing had happened to him many times in highschool. At least he could do something about it now. When he was in school none of his teachers listened to him.

“A couple of the boys in my class.” Atlas curled up into an even tighter ball and he took a shaky breath. “I didn't want to go back in for my clothes or be in gym with them, so I’m just sitting out here.”

“Well, there’s no one in there right now, so why don’t you change out of your gym clothes. I’ll make sure no one goes in there until you come out.”

Atlas nodded, standing up and wiping away their tears. Jon also stood, leaning back against the wall. He took a pack of tissues out of his pocket and handed it to Atlas. They took it, giving Jon a small, grateful smile.

“Thank you.”

Jon walked Atlas back to his classroom after they were done changing. He was probably going to let them stay there for the rest of the day. Jon didn’t have to teach and there were only two more periods left. At Least Atlas seemed to be feeling a bit better, they were still sniffling and clutching the pack of tissues, but they weren’t crying anymore which was good.

“The kids who beat you up are getting at least a week of detention.” Jon sat down at his desk and Atlas sat at one of the desks in the front. “I don’t know if I can do anything else, but I’ll talk to the principal about it.”

“I don’t really care about them,” Atlas says, bringing one of their knees up to their chest. “I’m more worried about my parents finding out.”

Jon knew that feeling. The combination of dread and fear, not knowing whether things would go well or horribly, or how badly it would turn out. The difference here was that Atlas knew things wouldn’t go well if their parents found out. Jon’s grandma had been accepting, she was confused at first, but had been by Jon’s side though most of his transition.

“Well, if they do find out, you can always come to me for help.” Jon, from what he had heard from Atlas, had the feeling that their parents might kick them out if they were to find out that their kid was trans. Jon didn’t say this, of course, he didn’t want to make Atlas more upset than they already were.

Jon did know that if something did happen to Atlas Gerry and Martin would also be willing to help them out. And even though there was probably something against it in the school’s policy, all three of them would be willing to give Atlas a home if they needed one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will hopefully be out soon-ish. Writing is hard
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated, I love to hear what people think of the story.


	8. Atlas 2

“I’m really worried about Atlas,” Jon said later that night, laying on the couch curled up against Martin with his feet in Gerry’s lap. “I gave some kids detention for being transphobic and bullying them, but to do that I had to tell the administration what happened, and that means that there is a chance the reason Atlas was beat up will get reported to their parents.”

“You told them that they can come to us if they ever need anything right?” Martin said and Gerry made a noise of agreement.

“Of course I did, but I’m still worried.”

“If something does happen and they get kicked out, they can always stay in the spare bedroom,” Gerry said.

Jon ran his hands through his hair. He knew that Martin and Gerry would do anything they could to help, but that didn’t stop his worry. Atlas wasn’t in the best of situations and him having to report the bullies only made it worse. They were going to get kicked out if their parents found out. Jon Knew this. At least Atlas would have somewhere safe to go.

\--

The next morning Jon walked into his classroom to find Atlas sitting there. Seems like their parents ended up finding out. Jon walked over to the desk they were sitting at, not bothering to put his bag down first.

Atlas looked up at him. “They found out.”

“I’m so sorry that happened. I tried to make sure the administration wouldn’t tell them any details, but I guess that they didn’t listen.” Jon said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not that surprised, I was just hoping to come out after I had moved out.” Atlas wasn’t crying, which was good, but Jon could see that they had been. “They made me pack my stuff and leave this morning. Everything I could bring is stuffed into my locker.”

“I know this sucks, but at least you won’t have to find a place to live. You can come home with me. My partners and I would be happy to let you stay as long as you need to.”

They looked up at Jon thankfully. Having their parents kick them out was painful, but now they had somewhere to go where they would be accepted.

Students had started to come into class so Jon went back to his desk. Everything was going to turn out fine with Atlas, he couldn’t Know the future, but he could feel it.


	9. Atlas 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I firmly believe that Jon can cook but commits food crimes when he does so no one lets him cook.

Jon had called Martin and Gerry during his free period to tell them what had happened with Atlas so that they were prepared when Jon came home with them.

Atlas seemed nervous on the walk home. It made sense, they had just been kicked out of their house and were now going to live with their English teacher.

Jon opened the door to find both Martin and Gerry sitting on the couch. They weren’t lying down or reading, like he normally found them, but sitting upright in nervous anticipation of Atlas’s arrival. They looked up at Atlas and Jon. Jon set down the bag that he had been carrying for Atlas and Atlas set down their other bag, keeping their backpack on.

“Hey,” Atlas said, giving Martin and Gerry a small wave.

“Hi,” Gerry responded. “I’m Gerry and that’s Martin.”

“I’m Atlas, but I guess you already knew that.” They fidgeted with their backpack strap, still nervous about the whole new living situation. “Thank you for letting me stay with you.”

“It isn’t a problem, we all know what it’s like to need a safe place to stay.” Jon and Martin nodded in agreement with Gerry’s statement. They had all been through a lot and were willing to help someone in need.

“I’ll show you to your room so you can settle in and put your things away.” Jon picked up the bag he had set down and led Atlas to the guest bedroom.

Jon came back to the living room so that Atlas could set their thing up in peace. Martin and Gerry were discussing something when he came in, but stopped before he could hear what they were saying. Jon was about to ask what they were talking about when Martin started speaking.

“I think we might have to tell Atlas about the whole, you know, fears thing. We can’t keep it a secret forever. What if Jon needs a statement or I am having a bad day and accidentally summon fog from the Lonely or Gerry finds a Leitner?”

Martin does have a point. There are so many things that could happen, and it would be better if Atlas knew beforehand. Then they would be prepared for when something weird did happen. Or if Daisy came to visit, it was her cottage after all, the Hunt had changed her appearance a bit and Atlas would probably notice.

“Ok, but how are we going to tell them?”

“I don’t know, but we should give them a few days to settle in before dumping a bunch of stuff about eldritch fear gods on them,” Gerry said.

“That sounds like a good plan,” Martin agrees.

“We’ll figure out what to do soon, but in the meantime, I’m hungry. I think we have some pizza dough, I could make pizza,” Jon suggests.

“Pizza sounds good, but there is no way we are letting you make it.”

“I love you, but Martin is right.”

Jon laughs and sits on the couch while Gerry goes to start making dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably going to write a few in between chapters before they have to explain the fears to Atlas.


	10. A Leitner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a Leitner in the school's library.

Gerry had been trying to find a Leitner for two weeks. He had heard about a ‘weird book’ from a patron at the bar, and after doing more research figured out that the book belonged to the spiral. Apparently a few people had read it and found themselves lost in alleyways around town. It had taken a while to find it because the book tended to disappear when it was done being read. Gerry had managed to track it down, the only problem was that it was in the library at the school Jon taught at.

Gerry preferred to get the book quickly without disturbing Jon. Having him know about the book would just worry him, and Gerry didn’t need help dealing with this one, so there was no point in telling Jon.

Finding the book once he was in the library was pretty easy since, like most things associated with the spiral, it was an obnoxious shade of yellow. It was in between two books about astrophysics. Gerry laughed a little at that, a book of the spiral in a section that is aligned with the vast.

Gerry grabbed the book and was about to leave when he ran straight into Jon.

“Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was walking,” Gerry apologized to a slightly startled Jon. “Also I thought that you had a class right now.”

“I do, they are writing a research paper, so I moved class to the library. What are you doing here?”

Gerry held up the book and opened it to show Jon the label on the inside cover. “I didn’t want you to worry about it, so I didn’t say anything. Also this one isn’t that powerful, and if anything happens I can always call Helen to get me out of the Spiral.”

“Ok, just be safe,” Jon said and gave Gerry a quick kiss. “Have fun with your book destroying.”

“I will,” Gerry responded.

He put the book in his jacket pocket and left the library, leaving Jon to get whatever book he had been getting when Gerry ran into him.

\--

Jon watched Gerry leave, he was worried, but Gerry had been dealing with Leitners for most of his life so Jon knew he would be fine.

Jon headed back to his class, book in hand and found them all waiting quietly. They had probably not been doing work, but at least had the decency to not be loud in the library.

“Who was the goth dude?” One of the students asked.

Jon sighed. “Why are you asking, you should be working on your paper.”

“Well, you were obviously talking to him, it doesn’t take that long to get a book.”

Why did Jon’s students have to be both curious and observant?

“He is my boyfriend. He was here to pick something up.” It wasn’t technically a lie, but Jon wasn’t going to tell a bunch of his students that his boyfriend was taking an evil book from the school library.

“You’re dating him?” Another student asked. “He’s big and goth and scary, and you are the most stereotypical English teacher that I’ve ever seen.”

“Trust me, he’s not that scary, he just likes to act like he is,” Jon said. “Now get back to work. You all have papers to write.”


	11. Cows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin and Gerry go for a walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon Gerry as having pots and using a wheelchair for when he is going to be walking or standing for long periods of time. I did do research for this, but I don't have pots, so if anyone reading this does and I got something wrong, feel free to correct me.

Martin heard a loud thump coming from the bedroom. The library was closed that day, so he had decided to make himself a proper breakfast instead of just having cereal, but that would apparently have to wait.

“You okay?” Martin called out.

“Probably,” Gerry responded, voice muffled. “But I do have a nose bleed.”

Martin grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom on the way to the bedroom where he found Gerry lying on the floor with his hand covering his face.

“How did you manage this?” Martin handed him the tissues and Gerry quickly covered his nose.

“Tried to stand up, got dizzy, fell, all with my foot stuck in the covers.”

“Okay. Let’s get you to the bathroom, your hands are covered in blood.”

Martin didn’t bother trying to get Gerry standing, instead he just picked him up bridal style. He set Gerry down on the toilet and grabbed a towel hanging on the door. Martin wet one of the towels corners and started wiping Gerry’s hands off. The bleeding had mostly stopped by now. That was good, it hadn’t been too bad of a nose bleed.

Once Gerry was cleaned up and his nose had stopped bleeding Martin went back to making his breakfast, adding an extra egg to the pan and making another slice of toast for Gerry.

“Want to go for a walk, see some good cows?” Martin asked while they were eating.

Gerry laughed, “You really love those cows, and yes, a walk sounds great.”

“Great, I’ll grab your wheelchair,” Martin said, getting up and kissing Gerry on the forehead. “And everyone loves those cows.”

“I guess I’ll clean up while you faun over the cows,” Gerry said with mock annoyance, picking up their plates and bringing them into the kitchen.

After everything had gotten cleaned up from breakfast Martin and Gerry set out for their walk. Of course since it was a walk with Martin it ended up being less of a walk and more of a quest to find a cow and then pet it. Gerry was perfectly happy to sit and watch his boyfriend get overjoyed about a cow, so he didn’t mind.

“Do you think that we should clean out that loft that we use for storage, so Basira and Daisy have a place to sleep when they come over?” Gerry asked.

“Huh?” Martin hadn’t heard a word Gerry had said, being too focused on petting a cow.

“We should clean out the loft. Basira and Daisy are going to need a place to stay since Atlas is using the spare bedroom.”

“Probably, but what are we going to tell Jon? We can’t give away the surprise, it’s still another two weeks until they get here.”

“You could say you are doing it as something to do during the day,” Martin said. It was a good point, since Gerry worked at night he had most of the day free.

“That could work, Jon might get suspicious though,” Gerry said.

“Maybe, but what is he going to do about it.” Martin stepped away from the cow he had been petting to face Gerry. “He promised not to Know stuff about us and I doubt that he would argue about you cleaning.”

“True.”

Martin looked between Gerry and the cow, obviously wanting to keep petting it. “You want to go back?”

“Keep petting your cow,” Gerry said. “I can feel how much you want to from here.”

Martin smiled and went back to the cow, who also seemed happy about Martin returning to pet it. Gerry just sat by the fence, watching his boyfriend pet the cow with a smile. Gerry thought the cows were okay, but it made him happy to see Martin get excited over petting them.

By the time Gerry and Martin got back Jon was home, and was starting to make dinner. Thankfully it was one of the meals that they trusted him to make without committing his usual food crimes.

“How was your walk?” Jon asked as Gerry and Martin entered the kitchen.

“Great,” Martin said.

“We found a cow and Martin pet it for thirty minutes.”

Jon laughed fondly. That was how all walks with Martin went. Sometimes, when both Gerry and Jon went with him, Jon would sit on Gerry’s lap in his wheelchair and they would just talk about how much they loved Martin while he was petting a cow.


	12. Powers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They tell Atlas about the fears

“We need to tell Atlas," Jon said, they were all sitting on the couch and Atlas was in their room, so there wasn’t much of a chance they would overhear.

“But how?” Martin looked up from his book.

“Start from the beginning I guess,” Gerry suggested. “Is there really any other way to do it?”

“I guess not,” Jon sighed. “Atlas, can you come in here? We need to tell you something.”

“Sure, give me a minute,” Atlas called back. They heard the sound of paper rustling before Atlas appeared in the living room. “What did you want to tell me?”

Jon cringed at the nervous tone in their voice, he probably should have used better phrasing. Having an adult tell you that they needed to tell you something was a stressful experience.

“Remember when I told you that I got my scars from work related incidents? Well, there is more to that story.” Jon explained to them the Fears and what happened to all of them at the Magnus Institute during their time there.

Gerry explained more about Gertrude and the role of the archivist, and also about Leitner and his library. Martin explained about what happened during Jon’s coma and with Peter Lukas.

“So, what you are saying is that there are eldritch fear gods and you guys have powers because of them?” Atlas seemed a bit confused, but they didn’t seem too scared of the whole fear gods thing.

“Yep. I know it's a lot to get used to, but we figured we should tell you before you find out because something happens,” Gerry said.

“Also, the guy that came into class and gave me the rose full of spiders a few weeks ago was an avatar of the End named Oliver Banks and he got there though one of the Spiral’s hallways,” Jon said.

“If you see a yellow door where one shouldn’t be, don’t open it. It’s probably Helen messing with Jon, but getting lost in the Spiral isn’t fun,” Martin added.

Atlas nodded slowly, trying to take in all of the information. “Okay . . . What powers do you guys have then?”

“Well, since I’m the Archivist, I can Know anything and compel statements from people,” Jon said. “But I also need statements to survive, and from what I can tell, the eye doesn’t like to let go of its avatars, so I’m stuck like this. Also my eyes turn green when I use my powers.”

“I can See what marks people have and Know things to an extent, but only if the Eye thinks it's necessary. And I provide most of Jon’s statements, since I’ve had an interesting life and he doesn't want to take them from random people.”

“I show up in the people’s nightmares after I take their statement,” Jon explains.

Atlas nodded and turned to Martin. “What about you? You said that you weren’t affiliated with the Eye.”

“Not anymore than comes with working at the institute. When Peter took over I became an avatar of the Lonely.” Martin reached up to twist a finger through his hair. “That’s why most of my hair is white. My eyes also used to be grey. I’m not an avatar anymore, so I can’t access the Lonely anymore, but sometimes I can summon fog, although that’s usually on bad days.”

Atlas looked at the three of them, taking in the fact that their parental figures were affiliated with eldritch fear gods and one was an avatar, which from their understanding, meant not really human.

“Can I see the eye thing?” They asked Jon timidly, not wanting to be rude.

“Just ask me something I wouldn’t know.”

“Okay, what is my favorite color?”

Jon closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the eye show him the knowledge. When he reopened them they were green and glowing softly.

“Neon purple.” Jon blinked again and his eyes were back to their normal brown. “I’ve never heard that one before, but it’s not a bad color.”

“That was cool,” Atlas said.

“It is, but please don’t use me as supernatural google,” Jon said, giving Martin a pointed look.

“And you’re okay with all of this?” Gerry asked.

“I guess.” Atlas shrugged. “It is weird, but I’ll get used to it.”

Martin smiled at them. He was glad they were taking it well, because he, Jon, and Gerry all cared about them, and didn’t want them to be hurt by this.


	13. Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of short stories about life with Jon, Martin, Gerry, and Atlas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapters will be where Basira, Daisy, and Nastya show up, but enjoy these in the mean time because I have no idea how long it will take me to write.

Atlas looked up at the sound of a knock on their door, “Yeah?”

Gerry opened the door and leaned in, coughing at the strong smell of nail polish.

“If you are going to paint your nails, please open a window.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, I just want to make sure you aren’t breathing all of those fumes,” Gerry said. “I’m going to the grocery store and wanted to know if you needed anything.”

“More apples,” Atlas said after a moment of consideration. “Also, you know how you said that you can tell what entities people are marked by, can you tell me if I’m marked by any?”

“Sure,” Gerry said. He looked at them for a couple of seconds, also scanning the area around them. “You’re marked by both the hunt and the dark.”

“What does that mean?”

“Not much,” Gerry said. “Some marks make people a target for the entities and others mean that they have come in contact with them, both of yours are from coming in contact with the entities, so there is nothing to worry about.”

“That’s good I guess,” They said.

“It is. How are you handling all of this anyway?”

“I’m pretty freaked out by it all if I’m being honest, but I’m getting used to it.” Having all of that knowledge dumped on them was a lot and it was hard to get used to knowing that there is a world of fear monsters out there. And that they were living with people who had direct contact with that world.

“Well, if you ever need to talk about it, we are here for you. Although Martin and Jon might be better to talk about this with since I was raised with the whole fear gods thing, so I never had to get used to it.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Atlas smiled at Gerry, it was good to know they had people to go to.

“No problem. I’ll leave you to your nail painting, just remember to open a window.” Gerry closed their door.

\----------

Jon was sitting on the floor with Atlas looking through a few of the storage bins from the loft while Gerry and Martin were in the kitchen making tea. Well Martin was making tea, Gerry was just sitting on the counter.

Jon had no idea why Gerry had decided to clean out the loft, but he wasn’t going to complain. There were a few bins full of stuff that they had brought when they fled, but the rest was supplies that Daisy had stocked the safe house with.

Atlas pulled a fake black pumpkin out of one of the bins. “You were fleeing and you brought Halloween decorations?”

“It was important, you can’t not have Halloween decorations,” Gerry called out from the kitchen.

Martin laughed, handing two mugs to Gerry to carry in to Atlas and Jon.

Jon opened the next container and began to tear up at what he saw inside. Sitting on top of everything was a Polaroid picture of him, Martin, Sasha, and Tim at a pride parade. This was the only photo that had the real Sasha in it. In the photo Jon was frowning, squished between Martin and Tim, Sasha on Tim’s other side. Martin had a trans flag tied around his neck like a cape and was wearing a rainbow flag shirt. Both Sasha and Tim were wearing bi flag shirts and Tim had a polyamory pride pin. Jon was wearing an ace pride shirt and had a small trans flag tattooed on his cheek.

For all that Jon had complained that day, he had had a lot of fun. They had stayed there all day, eating food truck food and getting drunk.

“Martin,” Jon called, voice quiet as he stared at the photo. “Look what I found.”

“You found it. I thought that I had lost this photo when we came here.” Martin’s eyes were starting to tear up now too. “I really miss them.”

“Yeah, me too.”

\----------

“Fuck,” Jon said, trying to keep his mouth open.

“You okay?” Martin asked, looking up from his phone, only to laugh at the sight in front of him.

Jon was holding his hand under his mouth, sticking his tongue out. He had ink dripping from his mouth and a broken pen in his lap.

“Stop laughing, this stuff is gross.” Jon got up and went to the kitchen to wrinse his mouth out. When he came back his tongue was still black, but there was no more extra ink in his mouth.

“You really need to stop chewing on pens,” Marin said. “I think this is the third one this month.”

“Well this is better than chewing on my hand.” Jon sighed, his mouth tasted horrible.

Martin was about to reply but before he could Atlas stepped into the room and started speaking.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard you guys talking about chewing on pens and I think I have a solution.” They held out a necklace with what looked like a rubber Lego attached to it. “You can have this, it’s made specifically to be chewed on. This is one of my newer ones, so I haven’t used it yet.”

“Thanks,” Jon said as Atlas handed him the necklace. “I didn’t know that these existed.”

“Okay, no offence, but how? You have a box full of stim toys and you never knew that there were ones you could chew on.”

“I don’t know. I’ve had most of those for a while and some were gifts, so I haven’t bought any in a while.”

Martin laughed and smiled at the two of them. It had become hard not to imagine Atlas as a part of the family. They fit in so perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like chewing on stuff and because I am writing this, Jon also likes chewing on stuff.


	14. Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some visitors show up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, school started and now I have actual things that I have to do.

“Martin?” Atlas called out. “There’s people at the door.” They had answered the knock thinking that it was a package being dropped off, but they were instead met with three women they had never seen before.

Martin walked up to the door and his face immediately lit up. He threw himself at them, pulling all three people into a hug.

“I thought that you weren’t going to get here until later tonight.”

“We left early,” Said one of them, she had a Russian accent. “Where are Jon and Gerry? Also who’s the kid?”

“They went out to get lunch. They’ll probably be back soon.” Martin stepped to the side to let them in. “And this is Atlas, they are one of Jon’s students. They are living with us because their parents are transphobic.”

Nastya nodded. “I’ve been there, but don’t worry you won’t have to put up with cis nonsense here.”

“Jon has like two cis friends,” Daisy added.

“I’ve never met so many trans people before.” They had a look of awe on their face. Martin remembers feeling like that, like he wasn’t alone in the world.

Basira was about to say something when they heard the sound of the door being opened.

“We got f-,” Jon stopped mid sentence when he saw Basira, Daisy, and Nastya standing in the entryway. He dropped the bag he was holding and threw himself at Nastya, pulling her into a tight hug.

“You know Nastya’s not the only person here,” Basira said, laughing a bit at Jon immediately launching himself at Nastya.

“I haven’t seen her since the Unknowing, you two can wait.”

Gerry snorted, saying his own hellos to Basira and Daisy.

“I missed you too Jon, but I need to breathe, so can you let go?” Nastya asked, trying to gently pry one of Jon’s arms from around her.

“Sorry,” Jon said, still not letting go, but moving so that he was leaning on Nastya’s side instead of hugging her. “I dropped my cane, so no, I can’t let go.”

Nastya smiled and shook her head. She leaned down to pick up Jon’s cane and handed it back to him. “You need to keep better track of this, I am not spending an hour searching for it again.”

“That was one time.”

Jon yelped as he was lifted off of the ground from behind. This time holding on tightly to his cane.

“It’s time for my hug now,” Daisy said. Thankfully she put Jon down after a few seconds.

Jon turned Basira and greeted her calmly, being done with the whole crushing hug thing.

“So why are guys here anyway?” Jon asked.

Nastya pulled a pair of drumsticks out of her pocket.

“We’re here because Gerry set up a show for us on Halloween,” Basira said.

A huge smile appeared on Jon’s face and he started to bounce up and down in excitement. He had missed playing shows and band practice so much. After the unknowing they didn’t have the time to meet up and play, but now they were all here and were playing a show on Halloween.

Jon pulled Gerry into a hug. Maybe he wasn’t quite done with the bone crushing hugs “Thank you. I love you so much.”

“Love you too.”

Jon stepped back from Gerry and they went to help the others get their stuff from the car. One side of the living room was now occupied by their instruments. Getting Daisy and Barisa’s luggage up to the loft had also been a struggle, but Daisy and Martin were tall so they managed it.

Once everything was set up Martin and Basira made tea. Everyone was sitting in the remaining space in the living room, Nastya, Jon, and Gerry on the couch, Atlas was curled up on the chair and Daisy was using Jon’s legs as a pillow. When they came back from the kitchen Basira joined Daisy on the floor and Martin grabbed a bean bag chair from the closet.

“So,” Atlas said. “Do you guys have any good stories about Jon, Martin, and Gerry? They won’t tell me any of the fun ones.”

“So many,” said Nastya. “If you didn’t know, Gerry will not turn down dares. This has led to many things, including him going full speed down a hill on his wheelchair.”

“There are so many more,” Basira added. “Jon was even weirder than he is now during Mechs shows.”

Atlas’s eyes lit up and Jon, Gerry, and Martin groaned, this was going to be a long night for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Martin and Daisy are the tall ones.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this took so long, school takes up a lot of my time.

“Jon get up,” Daisy whispered, poking him in the chest with his cane.

“What do you want?” Jon checked his watch. “It’s 5 am on a Saturday.”

Jon did not get up in time apparently so Daisy just picked him up. “Going on a run.”

“You realize what’s wrong with that right?” Jon kicked his right leg. “There are multiple other people in this house that would be better for this. What about Bassira, she would go on a run with you.”

“I don’t want to wake her up.”

“But you’re fine with waking me up?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you are,” Jon sighed. There was no way that he was getting out of this.

Daisy thankfully brought Jon’s cane so he could walk whenever she decided to put him down. Daisy ended up running the whole way into town before setting Jon down. She was barely out of breath as she dumped Jon onto a bench.

“Ow.”

“Stop complaining. You basically got a free ride.”

“Why are we here anyway? Nothing is open.” Jon looked around, they seemed to be the only two people actually in town.

“The café is,” Daisy said, yanking Jon up from the bench. “And they have muffins.”

“So you dragged me here to get muffins?” Jon asked.

“Yes. I haven’t seen you in months and I wanted muffins, so I thought that we could get muffins,” She replied.

“But it’s five in the morning,” Jon complained. He wasn’t really that tired, but he didn’t enjoy being dragged away from the warmth of cuddling with his boyfriends.

“You know that neither of us need that much sleep,” Daisy said. “Can we just get muffins?”

“Of course.”

There were a few other people in the café, mostly people who had gotten up to take a morning walk. Daisy got a blueberry muffin and Jon bought a cinnamon raisin one. They sat at a table in the corner farthest from the door, eating quietly.

“So, it’s been awhile since we’ve all been together, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Daisy said, breaking the silence.

“Prank war?”

“Prank war.”

Jon and Daisy finished their muffins and went to the store to pick up some supplies. They had spent a while planning, so most of the stores were open by now.They had agreed to split up into three groups of two and Atlas would be able to pick whichever team they wanted to be on. The only rule for the teams was that Jon and Nastya couldn’t work together, that had happened during the first few prank wars and everyone else failed miserably.

By the time they got back Nastya and Martin were awake, drinking tea in the small garden outside.

“Family meeting. Everyone come to the living room,” Daisy shouted as soon as she was in the house.

It took a few minutes, but everyone eventually made it to the living room, most still half asleep.

Jon cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. “Since everyone is here, we thought that we could do a prank war.”

“There are a few rules. One, no disturbing people’s work, so no doing anything to the papers Jon is grading, two nothing that is harmful, and three Jon and Nastya aren’t allowed to work together.”

“We will be in teams of two,” Jon said. “Atlas, you can join whoever you want.”

“I call Nastya,” Atlas said immediately. “What she’s cool.”

“Smart kid,” Nastya replied.

“Okay, the supplies have been set on the kitchen table,” Jon said. “You have twenty four hours. Go.”

Gerry teamed up with Nastya and Atlas, Daisy stayed with Jon, and Martin and Basira teamed up. 

Jon started complaining that Gerry was too good at this and shouldn’t be allowed to team up with Nastya, but was cut off by Daisy throwing a bag at him. She then grabbed his arm and dragged him into the bathroom.

“Water balloons,” She said, starting to fill them up. Daisy was also putting a bit of glitter in each one before she put water in them. This was going to be fun.

After they finished filling up the balloons Jon went to hide behind a bush and Daisy climbed up onto the roof. They had agreed to not use them inside so they wouldn’t have to deal with cleaning up glitter for the rest of their lives.

They had to sit there for about thirty minutes before Basira walked outside with a net to set up another prank. Daisy dropped a balloon straight onto her head. She turned around and while she was distracted Jon hit her in the back with another one.

“I’m going to get you two,” She shouted, going back inside to put on dry clothes.

As the day went on everyone but Daisy got hit by one of the glitter water balloons. Jon had tried to throw one at Gerry and he caught it and threw it back, but Daisy managed to get him while he was distracted. Gerry, Nastya, and Atlas had put plastic wrap on the door frames. Basira had put up a bunch of net traps and Martin put Kool-Aid in people's tea. All of them had attacked each other with silly string.

It had been a fun day, but they were all tired by the end of it. They were sitting in the living room drinking tea, everyone made their own. Most of them were still covered in glitter, a few of them had changed but the glitter still stayed. Even Daisy wasn’t free from it, the rest of them deciding that if they had to be covered in glitter then she had to be too.

They decided that Jon and Daisy won because the glitter was never going to go away, but Martin and Basira came in a close second. All of them felt betrayed by the tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos are appreciated, but I would love to hear what you think, so comments are even better.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nastya visits a class

Jon was sitting at his desk picking some of the remaining glitter from under his nails. His students were taking a test so he didn’t have much to do. Occasionally he would See a student trying to cheat and give the class a reminder that if they were caught cheating they would not get credit for the questions they cheated on.

With only five minute left of the test Nastya walked in. And she was holding an apple. Nastya did not like apples, the whole time they had known each other Jon had only seen her eat an apple twice, once because his grandma made her and another time to prove a point. Jon was suspicious, but he wanted to see how this played out, so he decided not to Know what was wrong with the apple.

“Prank war is over,” was all that Jon said as she sat on the edge of his desk.

“I know,” she laughed. “This is just for fun.”

“Can you at least wait until the test is over?” A few of the students were looking up at them now. “Get back to work, you have three minutes.”

“Fine.”

She fidgeted with the things on his desk until all of the students had finished and turned in their tests.

“Okay, are you all done with your tests?” Nastya asked. The students nodded in response, not wanting to spend the last ten minutes of class working.

She held up the apple and pulled out a pocket knife. Jon sighed and put his head in his hands. “You can’t have that. This is a school.”

“It’s not like they can do anything about it.” Jon sighed again, she was right. “I’m going to show all of you a magic trick.”

She tossed the apple to Atlas. “That is a normal apple right?”

“You know that you don’t have to let her do this,” Jon said to Atlas.

“I don’t have to, but Nastya’s fun so I am. Yes it is a normal apple.” They threw it back.

“See a perfectly normal apple. Now watch this.” Nastya cut the apple in half, handing one half to Jon who immediately threw it in the trash. She held the other half up, showing the class an apple full of teeth.

Some of them were grossed out, others thought it was cool. Most were confused about how the teeth got in the apple. Jon wasn’t sure how Nastya had gotten hold of the apple. Were the anatomy class kids just giving them out for free? Or, more likely, most of the other avatars were ganging up on him probably because of something he did while working at the institute.

He could worry about that later. Jon needed a way to get the apple from Nastya, she was both taller and faster than him.

“Nastya please give me the apple. There are still ten minutes left in class and I would like to introduce the new book.”

“They just took a test Jon, they can have some fun,” She said, picking one of the teeth out of the apple.

Jon sighed. “We aren’t starting it until next class, I just want to give them some background on the book first.” He made an attempt to grab the apple, but Nastya stood up out of his range.

“This is better than going over the book,” Atlas said, a couple of the other students nodded in agreement. “It’s an apple with teeth Jon.”

Jon groaned, now he had two people against him. “Don’t agree with her, she's just here to be annoying. And call me Mr. Sims in class please.”

“What is going on here?” Asked another student. “Who is she? And why does the apple have teeth?”

“This is Nastya my,” he shot her an annoyed look, “incredibly annoying sister. And the apple has teeth because at my old job I was given an apple full of teeth and she thought that it would be funny to do that at my new job.”

Atlas looked surprised and Jon realized that he hadn’t told them that Nastya was his sister. To be fair it wasn’t something someone would guess, they were adopted siblings so there wasn’t much resemblance.

Jon would explain it to them later. There were a lot of embarrassing childhood stories about both of them that they would enjoy.

Jon checked his watch. “Okay, go to your next class and try not to get me in trouble for this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in fact still writing this, I am just slow.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A student asks Jon to sponsor the school GSA and Nastya and Martin make dinner.

Jon hated grading papers. He hated it so much. Jon wasn’t completely sure why he decided that benign an English teacher would be a good idea, he hated writing essays when he was in school and they weren’t any better to grade.

He was in the middle of a page when there was a knock at the classroom door.

“Come in,” Jon immediately said, grateful for any distraction from grading papers.

One of his students, Jaden, hesitantly walked into the room, shutting the door behind her.

“Is there something that you need Jaden?”

She nodded, still awkwardly standing by the door. “I want to start a GSA, but the head of the school said that I needed a teacher to sponsor it. Can you sponsor it?”

“Of course,” Jon said. Jaden seemed to relax a bit, she had obviously been nervous that he would reject her idea. Jon was pretty sure that he was the only lgbt teacher at the school and the head had probably made the club set up harder than it needed to be. He was one of the people that wasn’t openly homophobic, but he occasionally said questionable things. “You can email me to set up a time for the meetings. If you want to start soon, Friday after school would probably work.”

“I think Friday could work.” That would give Jaden just enough time to set everything up, and if Jon was being honest he thought that the kids who showed up might be interested in seeing a band full of trans people play and the concert was that night.

“Okay, email me if you need anything else. I’m happy to help.”

Jaden gave a small wave and turned to walk away, but hesitated. “What is it?” Jon asked, knowing exactly what she was going to ask without the eye having to tell him.

“When are our papers going to be graded?”

“Soon,” Jon lied, he had barely gotten half of them done. “You should get to your next class, don’t want to be late.”

Jaden left and Jon went back to staring at papers and pretending that he was going to grade them.

\-----

“Jon, can we go home now?” Atlas whined. They were sitting on top of a desk and had been pestering Jon for the last ten minutes.

“You can go home by yourself if you want to leave so bad.”

“No I can’t.” They grabbed Jon’s pen, but he just took one from the cup on his desk and kept writing. “Literally everyone made me promise to get you home by 5:00, it’s 4:30.”

“So that’s what you guys were talking about.”

“You were right there.”

“I was tired and it was too early in the morning to process the English language.”

Atlas picked up the papers that Jon was grading. If taking his pen wasn’t going to work they were going to have to do something else.

Jon gave them an annoyed look. “Fine, lets go. Why do I need to be home anyway?”

“I think Martin and Nastya are making dinner.”

Jon sighed, Martin was a good cook, but Nastya had made some questionable things before. Jon had helped in making those things too, but Martin knew that. He wasn’t sure that Martin had ever cooked with Nastya. Hopefully she would be making something good.

\-----

Jon set his things down and flopped onto Gerry who was sitting on the couch.

“Ow,” Gerry said while wrapping his arms around Jon. “You don’t need to fall onto me.”

“Sorry, you’re just a very nice pillow.” Jon’s voice was muffled by Gerry's shirt which he had smushed his face into.

“It’s fine, just warn me next time.” Gerry kissed the top of Jon’s head and started braiding his hair.

Atlas came back into the room and went over to where Basira and Daisy were playing chess. They didn’t know how to play and Basira was teaching them. Turns out she had gotten really good at chess over the last year.

“Jon,” Nastya called out from the kitchen. “What temperature do you have to cook chicken to?”

“74 Celsius. And stop doing that, you have a phone.”

“Why use regular google when my brother is supernatural google,” She said. “But thank you. Martin the chicken is done.”

“Okay then,” Marin said. “Dinners ready everyone.”

Jon reluctantly got up and walked into the kitchen. Martin and Nastya had made curry, the chicken had been made separately since Basira and Daisy were vegetarian. Basira had been and Daisy became vegetarian to distance herself from the hunt.

The food smelled amazing, they had used Jon’s grandma's recipe. It was one of the few things that Jon trusted Nastya to make, she wouldn’t commit food crimes with one of their grandmas recipes.

Dinner was nice, but it eventually devolved into a mix of happy shouting and charades about nothing at all as most things with this group did.


End file.
